CALLED TO SERVE

Hello friends! :) I am currently serving as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Nebraska Omaha Mission. I'll be emailing home every week for the 18 months that I'm in the Cornhusker state; my amazing mom will be the one posting them on this here blog. Interested in church history? Come on down to the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters and I might just be there to give you a tour!

"As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Monday, October 31, 2016

This week we did a lot of service for members in the ward! We helped the Van Haaftens work on their new house. We painted a lot of floorboards and door frames for what seemed like forever! Then we also raked leaves for Sister Koster. Bellevue 1st knows how to put us to work. :)

On Thursday we drove to our district meeting in a land far far away on the other side of the Platte River. It took us about 40 minutes but it was fun! The countryside is so beautiful here!

Sister Beck and I also had a trade off lesson with one of Elder Beazer's and Elder Carota's investigators. Her name is Tara and she's been meeting with missionaries and coming to church for a while, but for some reason she's not willing to commit to baptism yet. We shall see!

My testimony on asking for referrals has definitely grown this week! A few days ago we met a man named John who was super nice and took a Book of Mormon and we then asked which of his neighbors might need an uplifting message. He pointed across the street where another family lived so we went and tried them. Yesterday, we went back to the other house where a lady named Lisa lives and we set up an appointment to come back on Friday. When we walked back to our car, John came out of his house to talk with us. HE came to US! That never happens but it was so exciting and he asked for more materials and pamphlets. He teaches some youth at his Lutheran church, but apparently they study all different religions and he actually read to them parts of the introduction and Joseph Smith's testimony! He is so interested in learning more and said he's really just trying to figure out the path he needs to be on. He said if God answers his prayer that the Book of Mormon is true that he would get baptized, because he's changed beliefs in the past and he's totally open minded! I know that if we wouldn't have asked him for a referral we wouldn't have been on his street at that perfect time. Heavenly Father's plan is so good. :)

Love,

Sister Irwin

P.S.

MTC district reunited with Elder Beazer and Elder Evans!

Platte River (just ignore my back leg it's hard to dance in a skirt okay)

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Wow it's been a busy week! It turns out that I got transferred and my new companion is Sister Beck! We are opening the Bellevue 1st ward to sister missionaries!! It's been crazy because we've literally started everything from scratch. We didn't have a ward list, area book, map, or anything! So we've been setting up all of that stuff and the elders were nice enough to go through their area book and give us some names. It's funny because not even the bishop or ward mission leader knew we were coming...but here we are! :)

One of the last things Sister Preator and I did together was take the new missionaries on tour. Lo and behold I saw Brayden Moore from the San Marcos singles ward in the group! What a small world. My daughter is all grown up now and she's going hard in the paint in Eagle Run!

On Saturday we had our first official lesson with a less active named Shauna! She is so sweet and hasn't been to church in a few months...except she came yesterday! With her adorable 7 year old Nicole and her 11 month old baby Emily. It was the primary program too and no one told Nicole that she should participate because she hadn't been there to practice, but she hopped up out of her seat and said "I need to be up there!" as she ran to catch up with the other kids. :) So cute! Also, there was totally a kid who dabbed on the stand. Plus we have a man named Chris Brown in our ward too so there's that. Last night we got to go on the air force base and eat dinner with the Hardens and it was a blast!

Thursday, October 20, 2016

I can't believe this is the last week of this transfer and Sister Preator is already done being trained after tomorrow!! Time is just flying by. Speaking of time...I'm almost done with my 40 day fast, which will leaf one more week until I write this fall-owing Monday.

So many amazing things happened this week!

1. Kathy and Scott came to church yesterday!!!! They could only stay for sacrament but still it was so so awesome that they finally came because there's been several times we've thought about dropping them and now they are slowly but surely progressing. :D 2. We had exchanges and I got to be with Sister Hutchison for the whole day! 3. One of our members, Amber, called us randomly and said one of her son's friends has read the entire Book of Mormon and is ready for missionaries! 4. We got a media referral (which means she was the one that went on Mormon.org and requested missionaries) to this sweet lady Elizabeth who's from Sudan! We contacted her at the perfect time because her neighbor was outside watching her dog and so we got to talk with her too! We taught the Restoration, gave Book of Mormons, and invited them both to be baptized all within 30 minutes of each other. 5. We had a fun family home evening with our investigator Michelle and her three boys about CPR (church, pray, read), and they should be coming to both the relief society activity and trunk or treat this week!! 6. Sister Bergman and I had a series of fortunate events leading up to a tour the other day! She was going to go on a tour with her actual companion but the people wanted to go downstairs for the quilt show, so her companion just took them and she sat back in first chair. There was a couple smoking outside the trail center who came into the entryway and spent a solid amount of time just looking at brochures (and church pamphlets!). We both felt prompted to go ask them if they wanted a tour and I'm so glad we did because they said they were actually just about to head out the other way! Their names were Dewey and Crystal and they told us they only had a few minutes (they ended up staying over an hour) so we took them into a theater for the movie. Sister Bergman and I ended up teaching the entire Restoration in detail and inviting them to be baptized before we even started the movie because they were so interested and ready to hear it! I loved how Crystal commented on the importance of having a sincere heart after reading them Moroni 10:3-5. It was great. We got their information and are going to send missionaries to them. 7. Okay, I seriously met the coolest guy ever with Sister Preator the other day. His name is Stephan and he's been a member of the church for a little over two years. He told us his life story that went a little like this: Born Jewish, converted to Christianity at age 16 and went to an Evangelical church, took a break from religion and became a spiritualist, turned back to religion and became a monk, came back to socialization and became a Buddhist, missed God and changed to Hinduism, ran into Mormon missionaries, and was baptized 12 years later. Talk about a spiritual journey! Stephan said in all the religions he tried, he learned truths but always felt like something was missing. He wanted to know everything fit together. He has 42 tattoos of all the truths he found in each religion, including the angel Moroni as his last one before getting baptized. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints brought everything together and then some. His prayers were answered that this was indeed the only true and complete church that ever has been or ever will be.

I know this truly is the Lord's church restored to the earth with ALL the truths one's heart could ever desire. It is the source of true joy! :)

Love, Sister Irwin

P.S. Game night with the fam P.P.S. Reunited and it feels so good! P.P.P.S. Our awesome tour with Stephan

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Hopefully someone enjoyed the pun...Sister Preator and I were trying
to explain to this guy why we didn't watch the news or anything and
we're still not sure if he got it haha.

Something that's been on my mind lately is just how awesome the gospel
is. Like really! No matter who you are, where you live, what your
race/gender/age is it can help you. This week I learned how to say "I
love The Book of Mormon" in German. I feel so blessed to meet people
from all over the world and it is so true that the teachings of Jesus
Christ are indeed for everyone! I know our Heavenly Father just wants
us to find happiness in this life, and following the commandments of
prayer, scripture study, and church attendance are a fantastic way to
do just that.

It turns out now the whole mission is doing a 40 day fast! We all made
a list of anything that pushes away the Spirit or distracts from the
work. One of my things is I'm going to try and not get none church
songs stuck in my head because it happens all the time! It's been
challenging because my brain thinks in music but I guess I'll just
have to blast the MoTab even more. Feel free to tell me some of your
favorite hymn arrangements or lds artists I should know about :)

The other day Kathy called us and told us her nose was running and
that she had to go catch it. I just love her! She also said she had a
surprise for us but we had to wait until we went over to her house. We
got there and it turns out that her friend Kristine has moved in and
she's actually a less active! Kathy was just so excited because she
had been praying to know how she could be a better friend and her
prayer was answered. :) Hopefully we can get Kathy, Scott, and
Kristine all to church!

Saturday was a stellar day because we had two member present lessons!
Sister Smith came with us to see Carrie who started reading the Book
of Mormon! She takes notes on everything she reads which is so awesome
because now she's comprehending things more. Then later on, Sister
Meyer came with us to visit our new investigator Michelle who asks a
lot of good questions and we have a return appointment with her this
Friday!

It was a great week! Everything is so pretty here...I'll have to send
a picture next week but Autumn is definitely in the air! The already
50 degrees air. :-)

Love,
Sister Irwin

P.S. P-day field trip to the Kanesville tabernacle, tour with sweet
lady Debbie and her husband, tour with family from Switzerland!

But wait, there's more!

Dinner with "Father" and Sister Bruun! They're in Eagle Run ward but
know pretty much all the missionaries here and treat us like their
own.

Also Bob and Lucy's daughter Heather and her cute baby Corbin came to
visit! Today we went out to lunch and tried the authentic Runza - a
sandwich type deal with hamburger meat, cabbage, onions, and cheese.
After that we went to Boys Town. :)

Friday, October 7, 2016

Oh my wow! Wasn't General Conference so incredible??? I just love hearing from our prophet and other leaders so so much it's like the superbowl for missionaries! There were so many great talks on the Doctrine of Christ, the Restoration, member missionaries, joy, repentance, and putting off the natural man, that I don't think I could even pick a favorite because they were all SO GOOD! :) If you haven't yet, I implore you to read/listen to/watch conference because it will change your life.https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

Fun fact: for online investigators, we have this lady named Claudette who lives in New York and lo and behold is also being taught over there by Sister Jessica Hall! What a small world. :)

Not so fun fact: Sister Preator and I contacted a referral last week and met this guy named Mike who was super nice. It was a great 20 minute talk except for all the little spawn of satan bugs that kept flying around us in a huge swarm and biting us everywhere...they were all over town!

We took this awesome nonmember Sonya on tour! She's been traveling around the U.S. for almost 2 months now and is going to hit all 50 states by December! She stopped in because she saw that the Mormon Trail Center was on the top 10 places to see in Omaha and we were all so grateful she came. She's super prepared and took a Book of Mormon and said she would totally get baptized if God gave her that answer and she wants missionaries to teach her when she goes home from her trip. So for now we are just keeping in contact over email!

One of my favorite things from President Gardner lately, is that he said we can't decide what role we want to play in someone else's conversion. Heavenly Father already has a plan for all of His children to learn about the gospel, and we need to have the faith to trust Him and follow what He would have us do! You might be just one of the small seeds that with time builds up to a person gaining a testimony. There is so much good that one person can do, even if they don't see the full effect of their efforts! "For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul. And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work." (D&C 4:4-5)

Let's go to work! It's harvest time.

Love, Sister Irwin

P.S. 1. I'm a fun mom and let my kid drive sometimes B-) 2. Our bff Sonya! (we look like boys but it's all good) 3. Even when I didn't think my love for the Egberts could grow any stronger, they made us crepes<3 4. Goodbye to our powerhouse fm couple the Davies :( 5. Elder KT Tilini singing with the MTC choir at conference!!!